Page 105 - Collected_Works_of_Poe.pdf

complexion. This complexion, the 'hitch' in the bandage, and the 'sailor's knot,' with which the bonnet-ribbon
is tied, point to a seaman. His companionship with the deceased, a gay, but not an abject young girl,
designates him as above the grade of the common sailor. Here the well written and urgent communications to
the journals are much in the way of corroboration. The circumstance of the first elopement, as mentioned by
Le Mercurie, tends to blend the idea of this seaman with that of the 'naval officer' who is first known to have
led the unfortunate into crime.

"And here, most fitly, comes the consideration of the continued absence of him of the dark complexion. Let
me pause to observe that the complexion of this man is dark and swarthy; it was no common swarthiness
which constituted the sole point of remembrance, both as regards Valence and Madame Deluc. But why is this
man absent? Was he murdered by the gang? If so, why are there only traces of the assassinated girl? The
scene of the two outrages will naturally be supposed identical. And where is his corpse? The assassins would
most probably have disposed of both in the same way. But it may be said that this man lives, and is deterred
from making himself known, through dread of being charged with the murder. This consideration might be
supposed to operate upon him now - at this late period - since it has been given in evidence that he was seen
with Marie - but it would have had no force at the period of the deed. The first impulse of an innocent man
would have been to announce the outrage, and to aid in identifying the ruffians. This policy would have
suggested. He had been seen with the girl. He had crossed the river with her in an open ferry-boat. The
denouncing of the assassins would have appeared, even to an idiot, the surest and sole means of relieving
himself from suspicion. We cannot suppose him, on the night of the fatal Sunday, both innocent himself and
incognizant of an outrage committed. Yet only under such circumstances is it possible to imagine that he
would have failed, if alive, in the denouncement of the assassins.

"And what means are ours, of attaining the truth? We shall find these means multiplying and gathering
distinctness as we proceed. Let us sift to the bottom this affair of the first elopement. Let us know the full
history of 'the officer,' with his present circumstances, and his whereabouts at the precise period of the
murder. Let us carefully compare with each other the various communications sent to the evening paper, in
which the object was to inculpate a gang. This done, let us compare these communications, both as regards
style and MS., with those sent to the morning paper, at a previous period, and insisting so vehemently upon
the guilt of Mennais. And, all this done, let us again compare these various communications with the known
MSS. of the officer. Let us endeavor to ascertain, by repeated questionings of Madame Deluc and her boys, as
well as of the omnibus driver, Valence, something more of the personal appearance and bearing of the 'man of
dark complexion.' Queries, skilfully directed, will not fail to elicit, from some of these parties, information on
this particular point (or upon others) - information which the parties themselves may not even be aware of
possessing. And let us now trace the boatpicked up by the bargeman on the morning of Monday the
twenty-third of June, and which was removed from the
barge-office, without the cognizance of the officer in attendance, and without the rudder, at some period prior
to the discovery of the corpse. With a proper caution and perseverance we shall infallibly trace this boat; for
not only can the bargeman who picked it up identify it, but the rudder is at hand. The rudder of a sail-boat
would not have been abandoned, without inquiry, by one altogether at ease in heart. And here let me pause to
insinuate a question. There was no advertisement of the picking up of this boat. It was silently taken to the
barge-office, and as silently removed. But its owner or employer - how happened he, at so early a period as
Tuesday morning, to be informed, without the agency of advertisement, of the locality of the boat taken up on
Monday, unless we imagine some connexion with the navy - some personal permanent connexion leading to
cognizance of its minute in interests - its petty local news?

"In speaking of the lonely assassin dragging his burden to the shore, I have already suggested the probability
of his availing himself of a boat. Now we are to understand that Marie Roget was precipitated from a boat.
This would naturally have been the case. The corpse could not have been trusted to the shallow waters of the
shore. The peculiar marks on the back and shoulders of the victim tell of the bottom ribs of a boat. That the
body was found without weight is also
corroborative of the idea. If thrown from the shore a weight would have been attached. We can only account